I remember when it used to be sort of an urban legend: new cars’ electronics spy on you, collect information, always ready to rat you out to the government.
It ain’t so legendary anymore.
TV commentator Tucker Carlson bought a new truck… and “immediately” returned it to the dealer when he saw this message on his dashboard:
“Stop, we’re downloading information from the Internet.”
Which the car owner did not ask the car to do.
They wanted that data, Carlson said, “to provide to the insurance companies to wreck your life.”
Expansion-hungry government and high technology: what could go wrong?
It seems that new cars routinely download software for use in their mapping and GPS apps. I get a similar message every time I start my car, except that it doesn’t tell me to “stop,” and it does tell me how to adjust the specs. Other cars with services like OnStar (or whatever they’re using now) do collect safety information, though, such as erratic driving and speeding, but those services are hard to disable. Even canceling the service won’t do it; you have to get some hardware removed.
Just now I have no car, I am car-less. I would rather not have a bunch of electronics in any car I might acquire.
New cars today have multiple computers. Don’t ever run off the road and wreck the bottom of your car because your car/truck will be almost worthless.
Gotta get a used car without such features.
The electronics on new vehicles have become very intrusive.